Convinctions in sexual assault cases

Prosecuting Sexual Assault: A Comparison of Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases

Prosecutorial Use of Expert Witness Testimony in Sexual Assault Cases

Recent Home Office research indicates that complainants in sexual offence cases still struggle to gain credibility in the eyes of police, prosecutors and jurors. This article examines some of the credibility barriers confronting victims of sexual offences within the criminal process. In the USA, prosecutors have utilised expert witness testimony in an effort to educate jurors and restore credib...

Prevalence of drugs used in cases of alleged sexual assault.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of reports in the U.S. of the use of drugs, often in conjunction with alcohol, to commit sexual assault. A study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of drug use in sexual assault cases in which substances are suspected of being involved. Law enforcement agencies, emergency rooms, and rape crisis centers across the U.S. were offered t...

Juror attitudes and biases in sexual assault cases

Sexual assault has among the highest rates of acquittal and lowest rates of proven guilt compared with other offences. Given that more than 70 percent of sexual assault incidents are not reported to police and only about one in 10 reported incidents results in a guilty finding, increasing conviction rates for sexual assault is a key issue for the criminal justice system. This paper presents fin...

Laboratory Management of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases.

Over the past two decades, cases of drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA) have increased in forensic laboratories in many parts of the world. Investigators of DFSA allegations know of the many challenges associated with these cases, but forensic toxicologists find that delays in the reporting of such crimes to law enforcement and subsequent lags in specimen collection are particularly importa...